


Vacivity

by lufiia



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, Drabble Sequence, Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 07:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20542427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lufiia/pseuds/lufiia
Summary: Even if their existence was meaningless, even if everything they had done was useless. Kariya would cherish it. Always.-Short drabbles spanning the 10 year gap between Fate/zero and Fate/Stay Night.





	Vacivity

**Author's Note:**

> One day I will find a lore friendly way to keep Kariya alive this long... just wait for it... could be any day now... any day...

** _ **Amarulence** _ ** _ **: bitterness; spite** _

If Kariya hadn’t come to Kirei first, or, if Kirei hadn’t come to _him_ first, he knew he would have died at the end of the 4th Holy Grail War. Kirei had been watching him, he knew that. Whatever Kirei thought was interesting about him then must still be there, even now.

But.

Had Kirei gotten a hold of Kiritsugu like he wanted, that would’ve been the end of Kiritsugu as he was, and Kariya. It was an undying obsession Kirei had, a fantasy that took precedent over everything else. And when Kirei would call him Kiritsugu without realizing it during sex, he felt disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. He was a stand-in, and a poor one at that.

When Kiritsugu died, Kariya was the happiest he had been in years.

** _ **Apanthropinization** _ ** _ **: withdrawal from human concerns or the human world** _

Kariya hadn’t been part of society for nigh on 10 years. His world was Kirei and Gilgamesh. But he was alive, even though he had signed his life away on the dotted line. He could leave if he wanted; had on multiple occasions. It was rare now, not that it was all that common for him to do so before. This was where he belonged. Maybe he had convinced himself that was the case after all his failures, his inability to protect anything he loved.

In all the pain he suffered, the days he would lie in agony as the worms ravaged his body. The knowledge he had had anyone at all, as terrible as they were, was a comfort. What else could he ask for? A normal life was out of reach the minute he was born as a Matou, his fate sealed.

And Kirei’s bed was always nicer than the alternative.

Always.

** _ **Cacozealous** _ ** _ **: imitating badly** _

At the end of the War, when their relationship was still new Kirei was often gone for days, weeks, months at a time. He had business to attend to in Italy and England at the Magic Association. He couldn’t bring Kariya, not that Kariya wanted to go. The silence had been deafening at first. Stuck in this depressing church until nightfall was nothing if not boring.

So Kariya had gone digging in Kirei’s personal belongings. Careful as to not disturb anything so much that Kirei would notice. It was his secret.

The things he found at first had been unimportant documents, mundane things from everyday life. It was the things that he found as he dug deeper that had hit him hard. Photo albums, a yearbook where a group picture of a young Kirei with the student council had been haphazardly jammed in the center, a framed photo of him and his... wife, pictures of him being ordained as priest. Perfectly normal things.

He knew nothing about Kirei at all. About this Kirei. The above average, normal man named Kirei Kotomine.

He knew everything. About the real Kirei. The decayed, rotting corpse of a normal man named Kirei Kotomine.

** _ **Caprizant** _ ** _ **: of the pulse, uneven or irregular** _

When Kariya had slept with Kirei for the first time, even in his haze of lust, he could remember digging his fingernails into his chest. A stray thought of ‘I could rip his heart from his chest’ had filled his mind at that moment, and sometimes, even now, he would dream of doing exactly that.

There was no pulse in Kirei’s chest now, hadn’t been for years. The Grail had a done an excellent job of doing what he dreamed of. Sometimes he swore he could feel it, after Kirei had come back from a kill, high off the sensation. Maybe it was the wild look in his eyes when he slammed Kariya onto the floor. Maybe it was his own heartbeat he heard. He didn’t know. But it was always gone after.

He missed it in some weird, twisted way. Kirei’s heartbeat was the only thing that was human about him. The only thing that Kariya could take from him. And the Grail did it for him.

** _ **Commendaces** _ ** _ **: funeral orations; prayers for the dead** _

It was odd. Perhaps his emotions had been wiped away at the end of the 4th Holy Grail War. Kariya didn’t know, didn’t care as his eyes shifted from the grave to Kirei. He was mumbling something, a prayer as he grasped the golden cross that laid across his breast. The funeral procession they had followed had long dispersed, only the two of them were the among the living here. Although in a way, that too was not entirely the truth.

Kirei had wanted to say goodbye, a strange sentiment coming from him. But Kariya knew; Kiritsugu meant more to Kirei than life itself. Kariya could never hope to match him. A man Kirei had barely known, had only seen once occupied more of his rotten heart than the man who had stayed with him these past 5 years. He hated it.

“Are you done?” he asked, voice clipped in annoyance when Kirei finally lifted his head.

“I fear his spirit hates me, even in death,” Kirei said, the merest hint of mirth in his voice.

“I wonder why that would be?”

Kirei simply laughed.

** _ **Fallaciloquence** _ ** _ **: deceitful speech** _

When Kirei performed his religious duties, his speech was always stilted and robotic. Even though Kariya lived in a _Church_ with a _Priest_, it always threw him off when he would say something and Kirei would respond with a passage from the bible, or an oddly kind sentiment about how God loved him. It was a habit so ingrained in Kirei that Kariya didn’t think he could break it even if he wanted too.

Really, a murderer like him talking about God forgiving everyone. It was laughable.

Kariya always wondered if Kirei actually believed in any of it. He hoped so, if only for the memory of that night he had found Kirei praying for him in the dead of night. He wasn’t going to believe that Kirei actually cared for him, that was wishful thinking. But it was a nice, if unrealistic, thought.

** _ **Lugent** _ ** _ **: weeping; mourning** _

There was a hollow emptiness after Kirei had left, for what Kariya knew was the last time. He wouldn’t come back. His fate was sealed when the 4th Holy Grail War ended and yet it didn’t feel real. Didn’t start feeling real until the 5th Holy Grail War started. Kirei had changed completely, he was obsessed with the grail, with a thing called Angra Mainyu. Kariya didn’t understand any of it, it was the ramblings of a madman. Gilgamesh was no different. These people he had spent so long with, gone in an instant.

It didn’t hit him for a few days afterwards. He had been numb to it all, numb to everything for so long. Kirei really had rubbed off on him.

He cried for the first time in years. Couldn’t stop. He had outlived them all, and for what?

And when they inevitably found him, found everything Kirei had done, it all felt real, painfully real. What had he been doing for the past 10 years? What was the point of it all?

Now he was Kariya Matou again, a person, a self he had almost forgotten. It wasn’t him anymore. He could never be that person again.

He was supposed to be dead, after all.

** _ **Welmish** _ ** _ **: of a pale or sickly colour** _

The red of the Command Seals that lined Kariya’s right arm were a constant reminder of a life he had lived before. The only thing left from a man called Kirei Kotomine They had been branded in his skin as a failsafe to keep the worms still left in his body from devouring him.

And he wasted them, one Command Seal at a time.

Kirei would have liked the burn marks, would have liked the agonizing, slow death of Kariya Matou being eaten alive from the inside out.

Maybe this is what Kirei had wanted for him all along.

Kariya would have to ask when he saw him again.


End file.
